Control system



A. C. HALL CONTROL SYSTEM July 25, 1950 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed June 6, 1946 INVENTOR. ALBERT O. HALL July 25, 1950 A. c. HALL 2,516,698

CONTROL SYSTEM Filed June 6, 1946 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR.

ALBERT C. HALL BY 1'14 L2 1.3 1.4 1.5M 1.0 1.. 1.8 1.9 CZW Patented July 25, 1950 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CONTROL SYSTEM Albert C. Hall, Boston, Mass, assigncr, by mesne assignments, to Research Corporation, New York, N. 1., a corporation of New York Application June 6, 1946, Serial No. 674,741

3 Claims.

The present invention relates to control systerns, and more specifically to positional control systems or servomechanisms wherein an obj ct is positioned or otherwise actuated in accordance with prescribed functions; of differences in position or condition between the controlled and a controlling object.

Inthe design of many servomechanisms it is frequently desirable to employ as the driving motor or servomotor a type of motor whose outputtorque is substantially proportional to the input to the motor. Such a motor may be a two-phase induction motor, one phase of which is excited by a constant reference voltage, while the other phase is excited by a control voltage, the magnitude of which determines the torque or speed developed, While the direction of rotation is determined by the phase of said controlled voltage relative to thereference voltage.

While such a motor control system provides a simple and flexible control of the motor output, the relatively wide variation in output speed with variations in load or torque, for a given input, generally renders the variable speed induction motor and several other types of variable speed electric motors unsuitable for use in servo-mechanisms where a fast and accurate response are required; Certain arrangements have been proposed for stabilizing servcnriechanisms wherein servomotors of this general type are employed but such systems are generally ofa complex character, involving the use of special servocontrollers' incorporating specially designed compensating networks.

It is the object of the present. invention to provide, in a servornechanism employingas the.

servomotor a relatively simple driving motor of the type whose output torque is substantially proportional to the motor input, or error signal, novel stabilizing means for insuring a fast andaccurate servo response over a relatively wide range of operating conditions.

More specifically itis an object of the, invention to provide a servomechanism having asthe servomotor a motor capable of providing a con tinuously rotating output with a torque substantially proportional to the error, said servcmechanism being stabilized by relatively simple mechanical means without requiring the use of a special servocontroller.

In accordance with these objects, the present invention contemplates the provision of stabiliz ing-means associated with the driving motor of the servoinechanism, said stabilizing means comprising a rotatable mass coupled to the driving 6 In the drawingsillustrating the invention, Fig.

1 is a view, partly diagrammatic, of a servomechanism or positional control system embodying the invention; Fig. 2 is a sectional elevation, of the servo stabilizing means according to the invention; and Figs. 3 to 6 are diagrams illustrating the operation of the device, and Fig. '7 is a detail view showing another form of the device.

input shaft It or other data source connected to a synchro generator 12, while the actuation of the object 8 is eifected by a driving motor 14 through speed reduction gearing It.

The driving motor M in the illustrated embodiment is of the two-phase induction type, having one field winding 18 excited from a source 1 of alternating current through an adjustable phase-shifting resistor 29. The other field winding 22 is supplied with an A. C. voltage, the magnitude and phase of which are controlled in such manner as to produce the required speed and direction of rotation of the motor to maintain correspondence in position between the controlled object 8 and the controlling device It). The motor shaft 24 carries the stabilizing device 26. to be hereinafter described in detail.

The control voltage for the motor is provided by. the servo controller indicated generally at 28 and comprising an A. C. amplifier of conventional design having substantially constant amplification or gain over the operating range of frequencies. The amplifier input signal is provided by electrical synchro type apparatus comprising the sy nchro generator or transmitter I2, and a synchro transformer it connected to the load 8. Thus the servo input and output positions are continuously compared, and an A. C.- signal is supplied to the amplifier, if an error exists, of proper phase and magnitude to correct such error.

The system without the stabilizing means is of well-known form, but is generally unsuited to practical use. This canbe shown by the following analysis:

Let

Jm=the moment of inertia of the motor plus load f =the coefficient of damping of the motor and load (assuming viscous damping) K =the gain of the servo controller times the torque constantof the motor i(iw) =displacement of the input shaft from some neutral reference position, ex

pressed as a function of frequency @0010 =displacement of the output shaft from neutral 0 Eul =i-o=error between input and out-' put dicated by the notation KGU'w). mechanism, the transfer-function is the ratio of It is now necessary to express the transferfunction of the controller and motor. The transfer function is the ratio of output to input of any device as a function of frequency and is in- For a servooutput to error, because the error constitutes the input to the servo controller. Thus,

The transfer-function involves a constant term K and a frequency dependent term GU19).

For the servo of Fig. 1 (still assuming that no stabilizing means is used), it can be shown that the transfer function is If the damping is considered negligible, this reducesto Further analysis may be most, effectively carried out by a plot of the function KG(:iw). In general, for any frequency w, KGUw) is a complex quantity and its magnitude and phase can be plotted. For stability, the curve should lie entirely to the right of the point -1+9'0; (or

more generally, the polar plot must not enclose.

axis as shown by the line A in Fig. 3. Since it passes through the point -1+7'0, the system is indicated as being unstable. This is for the assumed condition of zero damping; actually there is necessarily a small amount of damping, so that the plot, would pass slightly below the critical point, as shown at B, and the system would be mathematically stable, but the time of transient decay would be too long for practical use.

According to the present invention such a system may efiectively be stabilized to provide a fast and accurate ositional control system without the use of special electrical circuits or devices of complex nature and construction. The stabilizing means of the invention, indicated generally at 2B, is mounted directly on the shaft 24 of the output driving motor I4.

The stabilizer, illustrated in detail in Fig. 2, comprises a cylindrical fluid-tight housing 34 adapted to be secured to the motor shaft 24 by a clamping device 36. Within the housing and mounted for rotation about a hollow sleeve 38 is a cylindrical mass 40. The mass is coupled to the housing, and therefore to the motor shaft, by means of a spring 42, one end of which is secured to the mass and the other end to the housing. The spring contains a number of convolutions, so as to permit relative rotation of mass and housing to the extent of at least one turn, and preferably several turns, in either direction. A damping fluid is contained in the housing.

To show the operation of the compensated system, let

JA=moment of inertia of the stabilizing mass 40 fA=damping coefficient of the damping medium in the housing 34 kA=spring constant of spring 42 A d f t am in 840 O! 2 /kAJA p g tem composed of the mass 40 and spring 42.

The transfer function of the Whole system is found to be w :0 Kco' T f j A 1 -i- 1 3) which is equivalent to multiplying the transfer function of Equation 2 into what may be termed a leadcontrolling function of a type generally de-. scribed in my copending application Serial No.

560,184, filed October 24, 1944, now Patent No. 2,496,391, dated February 7, 1950.

A typical plot 0 of transfer-function of the complete system is shown at C in Fig. 3. It will be noted that at any given frequency, the lag angle as measured from the positive real axis is now less than 180, whereas, the lag angle for 1+7'0 and is therefore stable.

The constants Kp, and r may now be determined for optimum performance. pending application above referred to, I have shown that in the general case, optimum im'-. provement in the transient response of a servo may be efiected by neutralizing lag-producing elements by individual lead-control elements. The present invention does not lend itself to this treatment since it is not possible to realize a physical device having a numerator term to cancel the denominator term of expression (2).. The constants may however be determined by.

the procedure outlined in my above-mentioned paper which will now be briefly described.

For this purpose the ratio of output displace ment to the servo input displacement (not error) is required. It is The analytical expression obtained by substitutgraphical procedure for determining the best value of K for any servomechanism is describedin my above-mentioned paper. For purposes of 7 this description, it will be sufficient to note that the value of K is preferably so chosen that at the point of closest approach of the transfer-locus to the critical point 1+:i0, the ratio of output:

to input will have a value within a certain range. 76 Thus in Fig. 4, a typical transfer-locus D is each point of the original locus A is exactly The new plot does not enclose the critical .point In my 00- I,

shown. The origin is indicated ate; the critical... point at a, and the point of closest Japproachaat c. 1

The maximum ratio of output to input isi'given by:

This. ratio is designated M. The preferred-fvalue.2

of :M is about 1.33, which'means that. fonthe resonant frequency of thesystem, the ampli tude of the output oscillations. will be:1.33times.

the .amplitude of the input oscillations. Actu-.

ally although"l.33 has been .foundbest from ex-. perience, the value of M may-be within a range from 1.1 to 1.6, and may be allowed to run as" high as 2.5 in'many instances. IfM istoo small the system is sluggish, andif it iS'itOO' large the systernmay develop transient oscillations. of. too

great magnitude; For any given servo, the best '20 foridifferent K-values and choosing the onethat value. of K may be determined by makingiplots gives the desired value ofgM. It will beunderstoodthat K, since it involves theamplifier gain,

issubject to ready adjustment.

For some systems, of which the uncompensated system heretofore described is an example, it. will be found; that'thereis novalue of K that wills-produce a satisfactory It is 'the'main purposes of the invention .to-..provide. compensat anumber ofplots canbe made-for different This work maybe 1acili-- valuesof K, r and r tated by plottingonly that portion-of"(3)flwhich does not involve K, leaving Ksfor later determination, that is, by plotting only- Polar plots of (5) for several values of are-given in'Fig. 5. In these plots 1*? is constant and equal to 4; The kink or loop that appears in one of' these curves is of considerable importance and will be discussed later.

In a system which is to operate under varying temperature conditions, the damping factor may" varyconsiderably. Bearing'in mind that a must remain fixed and that it is not convenient to change K in service, the object is to obtain a satisfactory M-value over a wide range of the damping factor. This can be accomplished if r is fairly large. polar plots of Fig. 5, a relation between'M and may be found for any constantvalues of K and r Fig. 6 shows such a relation for r?=l.and K,=3, 4 or 5. This graph shows that satisfactory performancemay be obtained over a wide range of variation of the dampingconstant Thus, with .K=5, g may vary from about O.35;.to.0;84 without allowing M'to o above 1.5. The minimum value of M is about 1.28 for :0.50. With typical fluids this covers a temperature. range of about 70 F., thus a servo of-the present .invention would operate with an M-value not greater than 1.5 over a range of say 20 to 93 F. This range could be considerably extended by allowing a greater value of M at the highand low-temperature ends of the range; thus with a limit of M=1.9, may vary between about 0.24

From the data given by the 6 and 1.3. It will be noted that satisfactory operation would likewise be attained with K=V4.

From an analysis of such plots for a wide.vari-.

ety of values of the various constants I have dis covered that two different operating conditions occur in two different ranges of the value of .r;

In .the first case when r is fairly large, that is, when. the moment of inertia of the stabilizing,

mass is large with respect to the moment of in- 10 ertia of the motor and load, the system is relatively insensitive to variations in the damping;

factor; second when the value of r is small the system is also highly useful for stabilization if the damping constant is accurately determined with relation tor and maintained within fairly close limits. The first condition, namely, a high inertia ratio, is illustrated in the plots of Figs. 5- and 6. In general, if r 1, the feature of insensitivity to temperature changes is attained. Thus 1. for an aircraft instrument servo,'where a wide. range of temperature may be encountered, r

should be large, preferably about 4.-, as illustrated in. Figs. 5'and 6.

Before describing the case of a small inertia 25.: ratio (e. g. r l), attention isdirected toa peculiarity in the plot of Fig. 5 for 5:0.25. Thisplot exhibit a decided kink or loop, whichmeans that the transfer-function has the same value Thus the plot for l25 shows a loop, while the shown by analysis that this loop always appears plots for larger t show no such loop, although the plot for =O.4) illustrates decided bend. For a large value-of 1' as represented by Fig. 6, it

will be observed that operation is satisfactory in' both the loop region where the damping factor.- is slightly less than n; and in the nonloop region Where the damping factor may extend to much larger values.

' The fact that the plot has a loop does not appear to be significant in itself, but it will be noted that when g is materially les than Kr, the plot tends to rise toward the critical point a, as indicated-by the plot for 5:025 in Fig. 5; Whenvalueis one near gi or slightly greater; This ever can be maintained constanttheoptimum.

fact is availed of to give satisfactory performance.

in a servomechanism in which it may be necessaryto have a small value of T While the use able in small servomeohanisms, such as instrument'servos, for example, it may not be praCti-J.

of a relatively large stabilizing mass is allow cable in'largersystems to use a tabilizing mass..-

which is several times that of the motor.and.1oad-. In such a case, if the damping factor ischosenz close-to fk, or preferably slightly larger, the mech-- anism will be satisf actorilystabilized.

If'1' =0.5, for eXample,,-.1=.=O.273. A damping: constant 5:0.35. may be used; Then. M.=2.2l;..

which is satisfactory for many applications. It will be understood, however, that the damping constant must in such a case be held within fairly close limits and thi requires that the servomechanism be operated under reasonably constant temperature conditions.

A modified'form of the invention is shown in Fig. '7. This is similar to Fig. 2 except that the I stabilizing unit 26 is not rigidly connected to the shaft 24 but is connected through a slipping clutch 42. The clutch may take any suitable form, here shown as a number of spring fingers 44 carried on a collar 46 on the shaft and bearing against the stabilizer housing. struction is desirable when large inertia ratios are used. The purpose of the slipping clutch is to improve operation under conditions of rapid change of speed. The direct connection, as shown in Fig. 2, would be most suitable if the transfer function of the servomechanism were exactly expressed by Equation 1. However, the derivation of the equation depends upon the assumption that the torque of the motor i4 is proportional to the error. This is true for small values of error but if the error is large the relation between torque and error becomes non-linear and the torque approaches a saturation value. Thus, upon rapid changes of speed when a large stabilizing mass is used, the motor may not have available a sufficient torque to cause it to operate in accordance with the theoretical principles heretofore described. Another saturation elfect which produces a similar result is that due to complete winding up of the spring on rapid changes of speed. The slipping clutch 42 allows the stabilizing mass to slip with respect to the motor shaft whenever, because of saturation or non-linear effects, the torque required for accelerating the mass cannot be furnished by the motor. In such a case the load is allowed to respond quickly to the change of speed and the stabilizing mass simply slips with respect to the shaft. Under all other conditions the unit performs its stabilizing function in accordance with the theory heretofore described.

The system of the present invention differs markedly from the mere application of damping. It will be understood that a simple servo of the type herein described may be stabilized merely by applying friction or damping to the output. That would require an excessive amount of power to be continuously wasted in the damping medium; in fact, satisfactory damping would require wastage of two to four times as much power in the damping medium as is required for the load. According to the present invention, energy isdissipated in the damping medium only when the speed is changing. Under constant velocity the stabilizing mass turns with the load without any consumption of energy beyond that due to incidental friction effects.

Although the stabilizing device of the present invention has been described as embodied in a control system using a particular kind of motor, it will be understood that it may be used with servomotors of other form. The stabilizer is a form of lead-control device, the general principles of which are set forth in my above-mentioned patent, and may be used to improve the transient response of any servo in the manner therein described.

Having thus described the invention, I claim:

1. An automatic control system comprising a controlled object, a controlling object, a servomotor for actuating the controlled object, control This con- 3' means for controlling the servomotor, said control means being responsive to differences in condition between controlling and controlled objects, and stabilizing means comprising a housing rotatable with the motor, a rotary mass within the housing,

a coiled spring connecting the servomotor with the mass to wind and unwind upon relative movement between the motor and mass, a viscous damping medium in the housing, the spring and damping medium both acting to apply a torque to the mass when the motor and said mass are rotating at different speeds, the moment of in-* ertia of said stabilizing means being large compared to that of the servomotor and controlled object.

2. An automatic control system comprising a controlled object, a controlling object, a servomotor for actuating the controlled object, control means including an amplifier for controlling the servomotor, said control means being responsive to difierences in condition between controlling and controlled objects, and stabilizing means comprising a rotary mass, a coiled spring and a viscous damping medium connecting the servomotor and the mass, the spring arranged to wind and unwind upon relative movement between the motor and mass, the spring and damping medium both acting to apply torques to the mass when the motor and said mass are rotating at different speeds, the moment of inertia of said stabilizing means being large compared to that of the servomotor and controlled object.

3. An automatic control system comprising a controlled object, a servomotor for actuating the controlled object, said motor comprising an induction type motor having at least two hases, means for supplying a reference voltage to one phase, a controller including an amplifier responsive to an error signal generated by differences in condition between controlling and controlled objects for supplying to another phase of the servomotor a voltage substantially proportional to said error signal, and stabilizing means comprising a rotary mass, a coiled spring and a viscous damping medium connecting the servomotor and the mass, the spring arranged to wind and unwind upon relative movement between the motor and mass, the spring and damping medium both acting to apply torques to the mass when the motor and said mass are rotating at different speeds, the moment of inertia of said stabilizing means being large compared to that of the servomotor and controlled object.

ALBERT C. HALL.

REFERENCES GETED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS 

